s3148487 at STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU (Brendan Scott) wrote:
>Indeed, I was joking, albeit in a fairly dry way, and in the cold light of
>day, it was very tactless of me. I sincerely apologise to anyone who took
>offence, none was intended. Some people have very genuine sensitivities
>about these issues, which I should have been mindful of. I certainly would
>...
>appropriate precautions are taken. IMHO, however, I don't believe there is
>any danger of it becoming vapourous at dangerous levels - if I had even the
>remotest reason to believe there was, I certainly wouldn't allow myself or
>my co-workers to risk exposure to it. And even I wouldn't joke about it.
>Don't you guys/gals think you can take political correctness a bit too
far? If Brendan really were such a monster, he'd hardly be writing
about it here - he'd publish it in some high-impact journal and win a
Nobel prize instead. Each and every one of us is exposed to extremely
dangerous substances every minute of our work day and if it takes
black humor to cope with it, be my guest.
However, back to the original topic, EtBr as a ionogenic substance is
highly unlikely to occur in any vapors. The danger resulting from such
a vapor exposition is probably lower than that of standing next to
some smoker - or being messy with your P32....
Live's hard enough without us fighting among each other.
Harold V. Taylor
Physiol. Chem. Institut
Hoppe-Seyler-Str. 4
D-72076 Tübingen
phone: 07071-297-3353
fax: 07071-29-4182
email: harold.taylor.delete-this at and-this.uni-tuebingen.de